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Byer Professional 12 Turntable

The Byer Professional 12 was one of many turntable models manufactured by Byer Industries. This has a 12" platter and like most Byer turntables there was no idler wheel. Many turntables of the period an used idler wheel to transfer energy from the motor to the platter. The motor usually had a stepped shaft so that the idler wheel can be moved vertically to select the different speeds. Byer turntables usually had rubber tyre set into the edge of the platter and three speeds were selected mechanically by moving the lever (bottom right of the picture) to engage the stepped motor shaft against the rubber tyre. There were probably two reasons for adopting this approach, firstly higher starting torque could be achieved and secondly a flat spot was less likely to develop on the rubber tyre if the motor shaft was engaged while the motor was not running.

Originally when this design was released in the late 1940's it was known as the E-12-D and only supported two speeds 33 1/3 and 78 rpm. With the advent of 45's a design revision add this third speed. Finally, so that 16 2/3 rpm could be accommodated a two speed motor replaced the original an the Professional 12 became a six speed turntable.